All stories by Margaret Gray on BroadwayStars

Saturday, December 12, 2015

'The Bridges of Madison County' at the Ahmanson: After the seduction, the story drags by Margaret Gray

It happens so often in Iowa that the housewives have come to expect it: Moments after their husbands and children head off to the state fair, hunky photographers arrive, asking directions to…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 12:35PM
Sunday, December 6, 2015

'Guys and Dolls' at the Wallis: Pared down but still full of punch by Margaret Gray

The stripper whose wildest dream is of marriage. The high-stakes gambler who falls for a missionary. Both live on the sweet, homely Broadway of Damon Runyon, whose short stories about Depr…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 10:42PM
Thursday, October 22, 2015

Antaeus Company's 'Uncle Vanya' is a sharp execution of midlife drift by Margaret Gray

As a child, I couldn’t understand why anybody would attend a production of Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya”; surely not even the most pretentious adult would choose to watch gloomy Russians w…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 05:42PM
Thursday, October 15, 2015

Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal, 45 years later: 'Love Letters' loaded with nostalgia by Margaret Gray

You could counterfeit money, risking jail time, or you could cast the stars of one of the most profitable romances in movie history and hit the road with a perennially popular stage show. Th…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 10:50PM

'Bright New Boise' at Chance Theater: Secrets and scandal in the break room of Hobby Lobby by Margaret Gray

Some of us try to jury-rig meaningful lives using the disheartening fragments at our disposal; others dream of wiping the slate clean and starting anew. Both approaches prove painfully unsat…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 10:52AM
Thursday, August 27, 2015

The young and the self-involved: 'Cafe Society,' an L.A. story at the Odyssey by Margaret Gray

One unintended consequence of the communications age is the increased difficulty of putting together a believable plot.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:16PM
Thursday, August 20, 2015

A megachurch's backstage drama plays out at the Blank Theatre by Margaret Gray

The ensconced veteran reluctant to give up the spotlight. The impatient successor nipping at his heels. This scenario has launched plots from "Paradise Lost" to "The Late Shift."

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 07:41PM
Friday, July 24, 2015

'Oklahoma!' sweeps audience back to prairie in lush show by Margaret Gray

The first collaboration between Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, "Oklahoma!," which debuted in 1943, is often credited with reinventing musical theater - although "Showboat," from 1…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 07:13AM
Friday, June 26, 2015

Highly engaging low farce in 'The Heir Apparent' at ICT by Margaret Gray

Struggles over inheritance are always painful -- unless, of course, they take place in a French farce, in which case they are endlessly prankish and ribald.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 02:47AM
Friday, June 5, 2015

An 'Effort' that feels familiar at Skylight Theatre by Margaret Gray

“When you slip on a banana peel, people laugh at you. But when you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it's your laugh,” the late Nora Ephron once wrote, neatly summing up the powe…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 10:38PM
Friday, May 29, 2015

Theater review: 'Satchmo at the Waldorf' at the Wallis Annenberg Center by Margaret Gray

Aeschylus introduced the second actor to Greek plays, adding dialogue, conflict, action — in other words, drama — to what had been a primarily lyrical art form. It seems like a no-braine…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 07:50AM
Thursday, May 21, 2015

Class, race and motherhood in 'Samsara' by Margaret Gray

When women have babies, expectations are born at the same time --  dream children, made up of assumptions and hopes, that grow up alongside the real ones.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:00PM
Thursday, May 7, 2015

Life pulses like hip-hop at 'Gus's Fashions & Shoes' by Margaret Gray

The characters in Ron Klier’s new play “Gus’s Fashions

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 07:00PM
Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Martha Graham at VPAC: Dance as bridge from past to future by Margaret Gray

The importance of Martha Graham in modern dance can't be overstated: Like Picasso and Stravinsky, she is credited with bringing a classical art form forcibly into the 20th century through ra…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 02:00PM
Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Plenty of bite in 'Of Good Stock,' but a soft heart lurks within by Margaret Gray

South Coast Repertory’s generosity to new playwrights has a fairy godmother-like charm. The company commissioned a play from the relatively unknown writer Melissa Ross and has lavished a v…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 07:00PM
Wednesday, March 25, 2015

The newest 'Cinderellas:' -- finding an unexpected virtue by Margaret Gray

I thought I was over "Cinderella." I assumed the whole world was over "Cinderella" right along with me.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 04:00PM
Saturday, March 21, 2015

Pasadena Playhouse's 'Pygmalion' is more a rethinking than a revival by Margaret Gray

"I'm actually wondering if I need to put a giant sign in the lobby of the Pasadena Playhouse that says, 'This is not like "My Fair Lady," ' " says Jessica Kubzansky, who is directing a reviv…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 02:00PM
Thursday, March 19, 2015

Revisiting 'Verdigris' at Theatre West 30 years later by Margaret Gray

Theatre West has revived Jim Beaver’s play “Verdigris,” a hit for the company 30 years ago, about a young man’s absorption into an offbeat Oklahoma family in the summer of 1972.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 07:30PM
Tuesday, March 17, 2015

All dressed up, but this 'fish story' goes nowhere by Margaret Gray

There are plenty of fish in the sea, we console ourselves when loved ones escape our nets. But in Kimber Lee’s new play, “tokyo fish story,” having its world premiere at South Coast Re…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 07:00PM
Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Don't miss a word of this 'American Buffalo' by Margaret Gray

David Mamet’s “American Buffalo,” which premiered in Chicago in 1975, startled and delighted the theater world with its dialogue: broken, overlapping sentence fragments, studded with e…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 10:00AM
Sunday, February 15, 2015

'Enter Laughing': Carl Reiner story sings its way onto Wallis stage by Margaret Gray

“Enter Laughing,” Carl Reiner’s semi-autobiographical 1958 novel, has had nearly as varied a career as its author. Playwright Joseph Stein (“Fiddler on the Roof”) turned it into a …

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:03PM
Friday, January 30, 2015

Darrell Hammond makes impression on 'SNL,' stage by Margaret Gray

The versatile impressionist Darrell Hammond, 59, holds the record as the longest-running cast member on "Saturday Night Live" (1995-2009) and recently succeeded the late Don Pardo as the pro…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 02:00PM
Friday, January 23, 2015

Rostand gets the mob treatment in 'Serrano the Musical' by Margaret Gray

“Serrano the Musical,” in its world premiere at the Matrix Theatre, relocates “Cyrano de Bergerac,” originally set in 1640 France, to New York’s Little Italy, around now.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 01:00PM
Thursday, December 11, 2014

Balancing sweet and tart, it's an 'Almost' happy holiday by Margaret Gray

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas -- an unusually frosty, Northeastern Christmas for these climes -- at the Hudson Mainstage, where a twinkly new production of John Cariani's "Almo…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:00PM
Friday, November 28, 2014

Robert Falls, Midwesterner at heart, warms to L.A. for 'Luna Gale' by Margaret Gray

"It's currently 12 degrees in Chicago," says Robert Falls, the artistic director of Chicago's Goodman Theatre. He's in L.A. to oversee the Tuesday opening at the Kirk Douglas Theatre of Rebe…

SOURCE: Chicago Tribune Subscription at 03:00PM
Thursday, November 13, 2014

Lessons shoehorned into 'Kinky Boots' by Margaret Gray

Would you believe that in the Broadway juggernaut "Kinky Boots," which has just arrived at the Pantages Theatre, nobody even wears boots?

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 09:39PM
Friday, October 17, 2014

'Nice Things' takes issue with military recruitment by Margaret Gray

In his new play, “Nice Things,” premiering at Rogue Machine Theatre, Vince Melocchi returns to the middle-American, blue-collar, recession-devastated milieu of his two previous plays, �…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 06:30PM
Thursday, October 9, 2014

All puns intended at DOMA's 'Young Frankenstein' by Margaret Gray

Underpinning much of Mel Brooks's comedy is the assumption that people constantly yearn to break into tightly choreographed, vaudeville-style song-and-dance routines.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:30PM
Sunday, September 28, 2014

Tyson's inviting 'Trip to Bountiful' at the Ahmanson Theatre by Margaret Gray

Michael Wilson’s revival of Horton Foote’s “The Trip to Bountiful,” which has just opened at the Ahmanson Theatre, premiered on Broadway in 2013 to a bounty of praise and nominations…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:00PM
Tuesday, September 23, 2014

'Kiss Me, Kate' an ingenious adaptation at Pasadena Playhouse by Margaret Gray

“Let's Make a Deal's" Wayne Brady as the lead in a revival of "Kiss Me, Kate": It almost sounds like an especially wacky draft in some fantasy stunt-casting league for theater directors.

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:00PM
Tuesday, September 16, 2014

'Cockfight Play' goes around in circles at Rogue Machine Theatre by Margaret Gray

“We’re just going around in circles,” a character accurately observes in British playwright Mike Bartlett’s “Cockfight Play,” having its L.A. premiere at Rogue Machine Theatre. (…

SOURCE: Los Angeles Times at 08:00PM

All that Chat

2024-2025 BROADWAY SEASON
Jun 05, 2024: Home - Todd Haimes Theatre
Jul 11, 2024: Oh, Mary! - Lyceum Theatre
Jul 30, 2024: Job - Hayes Theater
Sep 12, 2024: The Roommate - Booth Theatre
Nov 14, 2024: Tammy Faye - Palace Theatre
Dec 12, 2024: Cult of Love - Hayes Theater
Dec 19, 2024: Gypsy - Majestic Theatre
Mar 17, 2025: Purpose - Hayes Theater
Apr 01, 2025: Glengarry Glen Ross
Apr 10, 2025: Smash - Imperial Theatre
TBA: Titanic